So Arch just moved to NVIDIA 590 and dropped Pascal support. I’m running an older Predator laptop with a GTX 1070 (Pascal) + Intel iGPU. After the update, NVIDIA is basically gone, but Intel fallback still gives me a working desktop.
This machine was always a fallback gaming laptop, not my primary system, but I’d still like to make reasonable use of it.
My current situation: Arch Linux with KDE Plasma, Intel graphics works fine, NVIDIA 1070 is unusable unless I go legacy, Wayland currently working only because I’m on Intel.
From what I understand: NVIDIA legacy (580xx) = X11 only, Wayland + Pascal is basically dead.
Arch will keep moving kernels, so legacy drivers mean ongoing maintenance...
(picture related).
What I’m trying to decide:
Stick with Arch, install legacy NVIDIA, switch to X11, accept maintenance?
Ditch NVIDIA entirely, run Intel + Wayland, and treat the 1070 as dead weight?
Switch to a slower-moving distro (Debian?) just to keep X11 + NVIDIA working longer?
Or is there a better hybrid setup people are actually happy with?
I’m not looking to resurrect Pascal forever, just trying to choose the least stupid path for a secondary machine without fighting my system every update.
Curious what others with GTX 10xx laptops are actually doing in practice.
Debian by default uses the Nouveau open source driver for Nvidia GPUs and that driver does support Pascal. Debian installations will continue to work just fine even without Nvidia's development support.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouveau_(software)
I don't know if that's something that can be done on Arch but in theory you can test the fallback Intel driver vs Nouveau and see which fallback you prefer.
Nouveau works well for day-to-day use and works with Wayland. I'm not a hardcore gamer but have played low-mid range Steam games without issue. I suspect it may not do well playing high end AAA games but then again if you're rocking a Pascal era GPU it's unlikely you've been playing those type of games anyway.
EDIT: Just to add, pretty sure the built in Intel iGPU on your laptop is more power efficient vs the Nvidia GPU so it may be worthwhile to disable the Nvidia GPU entirely rather than worrying about software drivers.
R/n I have the card just deactivated. Not looking to play AAA games but using this laptop as a "player 2" for Minecraft multiplayer.
It's just thst deactivating the card and calling it dead silicon seems a tad sad...